neilorangepeelhttps://neilorangepeel.com
Dancing between design and developmentTue, 26 Jun 2018 08:56:41 +0000en-GB
hourly
1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1https://neilorangepeel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cropped-avatar-32x32.jpgneilorangepeelhttps://neilorangepeel.com
3232WordPress Profile Badgeshttps://neilorangepeel.com/2018/05/31/wordpress-profile-badges/
Thu, 31 May 2018 13:15:46 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=752I checked out my profile on WordPress.org only to find a fancy yellow organisers badge… I’m lying this was the only reason I signed up to help organise WordCamp Belfast and it was all worth it for my new shiny badge. Grab yours by helping to organise at a WordCamp near you!

It’s amazing to think WordPress is 15 years old and in terms of the internet that’s a long time. We celebrated in style at the only WordCamp on the planet to fall on the 15 anniversary of the launch of the very first release.

]]>Happy New Year 2018https://neilorangepeel.com/2018/01/01/happy-new-year-2018/
Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:39 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=674It’s 2018, life’s accelerating it seems. 2017 was good on the whole. Lot’s of client work done and lot’s of travelling. This year i’m hoping to finally get that marathon under my belt and launch one or two big personal projects, one being the successor to Tink Tank. I’m also hoping to help organise WordCamp Belfast.

Happy new year beautiful humans! Let’s be kind to one another and our fellow earthlings ???????

]]>Closing tinktank.inhttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/07/20/closing-tinktank-in/
https://neilorangepeel.com/2017/07/20/closing-tinktank-in/#commentsThu, 20 Jul 2017 21:07:23 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=638***
Update: Jan 4, 2017
I’m currently in the process of uploading all the theme to Github. It’s taking a little time to add documentation but eventually they’ll be available at https://github.com/neilorangepeel/. Feel free to contribute. Back to original post.
***

Aw it’s time to say goodbye to tinktank.in ?

I opened up Tink Tank way back in July 2013 and published a total of 16 themes. With over 100,000 downloads, some free, some sales. I haven’t released a new theme in a good while and the themes that were up there were being maintained but were starting to show their age visually. So I’ve taken them down, I’m happy to answer any questions about current installations but all themes will be retired. Maybe I’ll put them on GitHub if people are interested.

What’s next?

Well since January i’ve been working on my new WordPress theming venture, one that focuses on designs suitable for artists. Hopefully the first iteration of this will be released by the end of the year. I’m super excited for you to see it.

In the meantime thanks for downloading!

]]>https://neilorangepeel.com/2017/07/20/closing-tinktank-in/feed/3Deploying private reposhttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/06/16/deploying-private-repos/
Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:31:08 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/deploying-private-repos/Ugh I’ve done this before last year sometime. But for some reason couldn’t even begin to understand the concept of what I was doing nevermind actually doing it. So this is mainly for me in the future when I need to set up a SSH key between my server and GitHub.

This video helped me last year and I stumbled across it again late last night after a few frustrating days.

Thanks for holding my hand through a rather simple process Johnathan Stark.

This is also how I manage developments…

Setting up an SSL connection between your computer and your server.

Setting up automatic deployments between your local development to server via Github using webhooks and php (what-a-mouthful).

]]>More Dribbble inviteshttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/05/10/more-dribbble-invites/
https://neilorangepeel.com/2017/05/10/more-dribbble-invites/#commentsWed, 10 May 2017 17:21:52 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=621Finally more invites to give away. Is there anyone not on Dribbble? Do people still need invites? Why don’t they just open it up? I guess the invite only thing must be working for them.

All. Interesting. Thoughts.

But to the point in hand I have two invites that they have entrusted me with (I get drunk on the slightest bit of power). If you would like an invite please say hi in the comments, drop a link to your work/play and if I like the cut of your jib, you’ll be drafted in, in no time.

]]>https://neilorangepeel.com/2017/05/10/more-dribbble-invites/feed/2Go Deo, Go Deohttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/04/13/go-deo-go-deo/
Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:09:37 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/go-deo-go-deo/Earlier this year I was involved in filming of a music video for Irish band IMLÉ. Filmed on Murlough Beach, Northern Ireland. If you’d like me to be the cute male lead on your bands music video, contact my agent ????

]]>Contributing to open sourcehttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/03/28/contributing-to-open-source/
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:52:32 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=604For the longest time I was annoyed by a small design bug when using the Jetpack plugin for WordPress. It really wasn’t much and probably speaks to my OCD more than anything but here it is…
Screenshot showing-design bug in jetpack

It’s probably too small to notice but the visual stats graph that’s displayed in the admin bar didn’t sit flush like the rest of it’s sibling links it was 4px too short, once or twice i’d misclick the link so it was a small accessibility bug as well.

I when developing sites that used this plugin, I often thought it was code I’d written that messed up the link so I did a little digging around to find that some inline styling had it 4px too short of the 32px height of the wp-admin bar. Then I remembered that the wp-admin used to be 28px tall, so I figured the styling just got missed and was never updated. So I forked the repo on GitHub, fixed it and submitted a pull request.

A tremendously satisfying feeling when a tiny amount code you wrote gets deployed to millions of active installs. I can imagine it being quite addictive.

I got me thinking about open source and how every little helps, I probably know of many little design inconsistency or wish something worked slightly differently but I’d never think to make the changes myself. I’m guessing I’m not the only one but imagine how quickly things would progress if 10,000 other tiny bits of code / design changes / bugs squashed just as small as the one I did, it would amount to alot and leave the real eggheads to get on with the bigger fish that need frying.

On February 27, a friend of a friend, Britten Olinger, was in a terrible car accident. He was hit by an erratic driver in Black Mountain, NC. Britten is currently in ICU at Mission Hospital Trauma Center in Asheville, NC. I’ve only met Britten once or twice before but I know of him, his reputation upheld by people who know and love him speaks to the fact he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet.

My friend Ingrid got in touch about putting together a logo to help with the fundraising campaign Britten’s sister had set up to support him and his family. Through the power of the internet many people have gave a little which is going to make a massive difference to his and his family journey ahead, I encourage anyone to read more about Britten’s story and contribute anything you can to this massively worthy cause.

The design

My brother will never walk again. Britten has spent the last 10 years teaching athletes how to run. He has been a track and cross country coach for all of his adult life. He is currently coaching track at Montreat College in Black Mountain, NC. To say that my brother loves to run is an understatement. He has studied the art of running, he has mastered the technique, and he has supported numerous athletes in his coaching career. We have faith that God has a plan; there is a reason and Britten has the will.
– Nancy Quesenberry (Britten’s Sister)

Britten is a runner, a good runner so using this in the logo was an obvious direction to go in. I looked at the Noun Project for running icons and used one or two against some simple type. But none of them seemed suitable for this sensitive campaign.

After snooping around his facebook images I found a few photos of him doing his thing and tried to use his image and incorporate the into the logo.

The result. Using his silhouette accompanied by a rounded version of the typeface Futura using his Montreat College colours blue and gold.

]]>https://neilorangepeel.com/2017/03/12/britten-strong/feed/1A curated RSS feedhttps://neilorangepeel.com/2017/02/11/a-curated-rss-feed/
Sat, 11 Feb 2017 11:58:35 +0000https://neilorangepeel.com/?p=577I never really messed with RSS feeds much, it hasn’t cropped up with sites I’ve made and I’ve never had a personal use for them. Who still uses them? Are they still relevant? What services are out there? Saying this lately I have felt an urge for some reading—specifically blog posts. So decided to create a little curated RSS feed that you can find over at rss.neilorangepeel.com.

It wasn’t too hard a I gathered a various RSS feeds that I was interested in and through the links in rssmix.com. Then using php, I wrapped the data in markup and added some simple styling.

Screenshot of rss.neilorangepeel.com

I’m on the look out for other blog feeds so if you have a recommended reading, send it my way!